Louisville Ballet, the official ballet of the commonwealth of Kentucky, was founded in March 1952 as a civic ballet company. At that time, Louisville Ballet employed guest artistic directors and choreographers on a production-by-production basis. In 1965, Larry Gradus was engaged as a full-time resident artistic director, overseeing a group of temporary dancers. Ten years later in 1975, under the direction of Richard and Cristina Munro, the Company achieved professional status by employing eight contracted dancers to form the ensemble company.
The Academy of the Louisville Ballet, now the Louisville Ballet School, opened in 1975 with Alun Jones as Associate Director. In 1978 Jones became Louisville Ballet’s Artistic Director, a position he held until his retirement in 2002. In addition to his duties as Artistic Director, Mr. Jones choreographed numerous works for the Company and did a great deal of costume and scenic design during his tenure. Louisville Ballet holds the great distinction of being the only regional company with which Mikhail Baryshnikov has performed in repertoire productions. He danced with the Company during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons, after which the Louisville Ballet supported his performances in Dallas and Houston.
Upon Jones’ retirement in the spring of 2002, the Louisville Ballet named Bruce Simpson as the Artistic Director of the Company and the Louisville Ballet School, bringing with him over 30 years of experience in the international ballet world. Under the direction of Mr. Simpson, Louisville Ballet continued to present a diverse range of exciting work underscored by a foundation rooted in the classical repertoire. During Simpson’s tenure, the Company commissioned fifteen of its 70 world-premieres from choreographers including Helen Pickett, Adam Hougland, Amy Seiwert, Graham Lustig and Val Caniparoli. In December 2009, the Company premiered The Brown-Forman Nutcracker choreographed by Val Caniparoli with costume and scenic design by Peter Cazalet. Simpson retired as Artistic Director in summer 2014.
Robert Curran began his tenure as Louisville Ballet Artistic Director in late-summer 2014, just as the Company’s 2014-2105 Season began. He brought with him experience as dancer, choreographer, and director and the commitment to ballet is a vital art form, with classical ballet at its core. At the start of the 2015 season, he took on additional responsibilities, becoming Artistic & Executive Director. Curran danced with The Australian Ballet for 16 years,10 years as a Principal Artist, retiring in 2011. He also co-founded project-based dance company Jack Productions, and worked as rehearsal director for Bangarra Dance Theatre – Australia’s leading Indigenous performing arts company. A commitment to new, collaborative works, live music and respect given to classical works are all hallmarks of Mr. Curran’s approach in this role. In his short tenure, he has commissioned a new piece by notable Australian Choreographer Lucas Jervies, What Light is to Our Eyes, choreographed a new world-premiere version of Coppélia set in 1917 Louisville, programmed a collaborative production with The Louisville Orchestra that features the work of Principal Choreographer Adam Hougland and committed to performing the work of the great American choreographer George Balanchine each season.
Louisville Ballet has a repertoire of over 150 works by such choreographers as Sir Frederick Ashton, Erik Bruhn, George Balanchine, Antony Tudor, John Cranko, Jack Carter, Kurt Jooss, Choo-San Goh, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, David Parsons, Eugene Loring, André Prokovsky and Domy Reiter-Soffer, along with Fokine and Bournonville ballets. Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Coppélia, Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, Giselle, Don Quixote, Anna Karenina, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Musketeers and The Great Gatsby are a sampling of the Company’s full-length ballets.
In addition to four main stage productions, Louisville Ballet produces two in-studio programs allowing audience in our rehearsal studios. Louisville Ballet reaches an audience of nearly 50,000 people each year through performance and outreach activities and has earned a national reputation as one of the Country’s leading regional ballet companies. Our reach extends to all areas of the Louisville community and into Southern Indiana.